393.11/648: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (MacMurray)
226. 1. Standard Oil Company has telegraphed Department as follows:
“Our Shanghai office has just cabled us of the continued peaceful presence of French Consuls and gunboats at Chungking, Ichang and Changsha with the French merchants doing business without trouble or interruption, with the withdrawal of United States Consuls and gunboats together with our American staff from these points, forcing the closing of our installations. Our Chinese agents will shortly be without stocks to continue business and with no means of remitting monies owed to us. As our Chinese friends are anxious for a return to normal resumption of trade, our Shanghai office strongly recommends resumption of business at these points. Our American staff are ready to resume their posts beyond Hankow and we venture an [Page 300] opinion that a return to commercial friendly intercourse with the Chinese, in the areas covered from the points mentioned, can be carried out without trouble or irritation if the United States will return the gunboats to their usual stations for the moral effect their presence would bring. Such action, we believe, would in no way controvert any of the reasons for their presence as stated by the President in his speech before the United Press Association on April 25th.27 Under these circumstances, may we not request your favorable consideration of the points raised, with the view that the Navy on the Yangtze cooperate with the commercial interests in China to the extent of returning the gunboats to their customary stations on, the upper Yangtze River. Standard Oil Company of New York, H. E. Cole, Vice President,”
Repeat to Admiral Williams and ask whether he has any comments to add to messages transmitted in your 532, May 9, 4 p.m.